Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes, Sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen.
Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans, Let your trombones ooze, And go hushahusha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.
Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome tree-tops, Moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, Cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, Bang-bang! you jazzmen, Bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns, tin cans-Make two people fight on the top of a stairway And scratch each other's eyes in a clinch tumbling down the stairs.
Can the rough stuff ... Now a Mississippi steamboat pushes up the night river With a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo ... And the green lanterns calling to the high soft stars ... A red moon rides on the humps of the low river hills ... Go to it, O jazzmen.
Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans, Let your trombones ooze, And go hushahusha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.
Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome tree-tops, Moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, Cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, Bang-bang! you jazzmen, Bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns, tin cans-Make two people fight on the top of a stairway And scratch each other's eyes in a clinch tumbling down the stairs.
Can the rough stuff ... Now a Mississippi steamboat pushes up the night river With a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo ... And the green lanterns calling to the high soft stars ... A red moon rides on the humps of the low river hills ... Go to it, O jazzmen.
Works Consulted:
"Carl Sandburg." 2008. 8 March 2008. < http://www.amblesideonline.org/CarlSandburg.shtml>
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